Party’s over after Facebook photo uncovers purported scam

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A wedding snapshot on Facebook helped an insurance company unravel an alleged £25,000 ($31,000) insurance scam that had two men in Scotland claiming they had been strangers when one rammed his car into the other’s.

Champion bodybuilder Richard King and his alleged accomplice Patrick Allen reported their 2014 car crash to Direct Line Insurance Group, Scotland’s Daily Record reported Monday. Mr. King said he pulled out of a junction in his Nissan and could not see properly in fog, crashing into the side of Mr. Allen’s Honda, the newspaper reported.

The company, in turn, took their investigation to Facebook, where they uncovered Mr. King’s jovial wedding photographs featuring a smiling Mr. Allen among the groomsmen in the wedding party. The insurer later discovered that the pair exercised at the same health club, and that they each had their phone numbers programmed in their mobile phones, according to the article.

The courts tossed Mr. King’s insurance claim this month with a local sheriff casting doubt on the crash, which took place four months before the wedding. The sheriff claimed that the men were not “credible” or “reliable,” the newspaper reported.